Monday, February 20, 2017

My Favourite Records of 2016: Part # 3.

10. Chroma - Cuerpos Dóciles 12''

(various labels)

Of the assorted flash-in-the-pan fads that have increasingly been afflicting internet-era music subcultures over the past few years, one of the most irksome to me personally has been the sudden (perhaps already fading?) rage for “dark punk”/goth revival stuff that seems to have been swept through the world’s punk scenes like a particularly virulent stream of Dutch Elm Disease. I mean, ok - I realise that the world currently feels very much like an accelerated blockbuster re-run of the darkest moments of the 1980s, but does that really mean we have to sound like it too? If quasi-mainstream bands playing Siouxsie & The Banshees rehashes are still being hailed by what remains of the press as if they represent some exciting, new future, does that mean that the underground has to follow suit by launching tepid re-enactments of, I dunno, Christian Death or UK Decay or something? What gives?

Well, I don’t know. It’s just pure, unfettered personal preference speaking here, really. Let’s just mark the fact that it’s a sound I’ve never liked very much, and move on to say that, from my POV, the best thing by far to come out of this ‘dark punk’ moment has been Rakta (see below), and the assorted bands that have followed in their wake or move within their orbit – and chief amongst those is Chroma, a Barcelona-based outfit featuring (I believe) Rakta’s former guitarist, who has now relocated there and plays bass in Chroma. [Corrections to that largely pieced together pile of assumptions welcomed in the comments].

Verily, many ‘dark punk’ signifiers can be readily identified on this 12”, from the wanton abuse of phaser and chorus pedals to the grooveless, martial drumming and some high-end, Joy Division-y basslines, but Chroma’s application here is so searing and purposeful it almost redeems such gestures for all time. Far from snuffling about like not-quite-committed revivalists who got bored of all the other styles of punk music invinted in the ‘80s, Chroma wield their noise with an unflinching, 50 yard stare, as if just DARING the likes of me to fuck with them as they channel rage, resistance and forward momentum into some of the best punk rock I heard in 2016, no qualifiers or sub-categorisation needed.

Dragging riffs out of pure sheets of FX-filtered amp skree, the guitar here is genuine, shiver-down-the-spine exciting, but it’s Rebe’s vocals that are the main selling point here, standing out proud, feral, terrifying and awesome – war-cries from the side of the barricades that I hope I’m also on when our nightmare future fully kicks in.

Sadly I’m too much of a dunce to even figure out whether she’s singing in Catalan or Spanish, let alone understand what she’s saying, but it certainly sounds as if some heavy matters are being addressed, and I’m pretty sure she has my vote on them.

Behind her, the rhythm section Laura and Amy eke out a kind of scaly, dystopian gloom that certainly captures the best and most brutal side of post-punk atmospherics, those familiar snare rolls and eerie, melodic bass bits suggesting a slow march toward imminent, ghastly violence – with the ensuing image of Chroma’s fiery breath melting their enemies kaiju-style expressing everything that makes this great 12” such an enervating and inspiring listen. I may not be looking forward to much in 2017, but I’m certainly looking forward to more of this.

Variously available from different labels in NYC, Barcelona and Brazil, you can check Chroma’s bandcamp for details if you want to track down a hard copy, or get a download straight from the band.

9. Mule Team - tape (self-released)

At completely the other end of the rock spectrum meanwhile -- Mule Team are a great four-piece band from Japan (members split between Yokosuka, Tokyo and Yokahama I believe), who play cool, easy-going rock n’ roll with sweet guitar leads, catchy tunes, a rolling back-beat and a pointed disinterest in self-promotion or online presence, with the latter no doubt contributing to their music’s success in standing entirely outside of the petty concerns and demands of contemporary culture, whilst simultaneously not caving in to any overt retro posturing.

It’s good time music and they have a good time playing it; if you’re anything like me, you’ll have a good time listening to it, and this is all that matters. Over the course of the six songs on this tape (manufactured to cover costs for a Japanese tour supporting Nobunny and long since sold out), the band veer away from their base in Creedence-style choogle to embrace Dinosaur-esque neo-classic rock at some points, Big Star-ish power-pop at others, with just enough of the members’ backgrounds in garage-punk shining through to keep things fast, loud and slightly on edge.

A nifty Eastern hemisphere counter-part to bands like Tennessee’s Natural Child (only minus the stoner humour, Eagles infatuation and terrible album covers), Mule Team remind us that, when it’s done right, rock music doesn’t have to be anything more than rock music, because rock music is great.

One song from this tape can be streamed via Bandcamp (as per the D/i/s/c/o/s tape, please don’t buy it – the price equates to about £600), but otherwise you’re shit out of luck if you want to hear Mule Team’s recorded work just at the moment, I’m afraid.

8. Rakta – III LP (various labels)

The defection of Rakta’s guitarist [see Chroma review above] seems to have pushed Brazil’s finest future-punks in somewhat of a bold new direction if this release is anything to go by, with the slightly more outré sonic palette of vocalist/keyboardist/noiseist Carla now co-existing alongside the dogged, DIY punk beat-down of the band’s rhythm section, without the customary wall of guitar chug to fall back on.

Incorporating everything from ‘tribal’ floor tom pounding, horror movie organs and Indian war whoops to jagged bursts of white noise and masses of Rakta’s by-now-expected Boss delay pedal freakouts, the results are – miraculously - all served up in a manner that remains compelling rather than infuriating, and, as much as I miss the sheet metal distortion of Laura’s guitar, it’s safe to say that ‘III’ represents the band fully taking ownership of the more explorative, unmoored sound that their earlier releases have always hinted at.

Mixing an unsettlingly minimal, martial beat with outbursts of strangulated noise, mangled ‘satellite decay’ vocal fragments and fascistic soundtrack-to-a-barbarian-movie synth-strings, ‘A Violencia do Silencio’ sounds like something Cabaret Voltaire might have come up with in one of their fruitier moments, whilst both of the LP’s longer tracks (‘Conjuração Do Espelho’, ‘A Busca Do Circulo’) succeed in conjuring up the kind of electronic-atavistic sound-fog that puts me in mind of much-missed noise-witch covens like Pocahaunted or Double Leopards – reference points that it is very cool indeed to have the opportunity to throw around in relation to what is still ostensibly a “punk” record.

I guess you could say, much of the time, when a rock band let their yen for ‘creative expression’ hang out as shamelessly as Rakta do here, you’d be apt to write it off as a load of indulgent, difficult-second-album hoo-hah and wish they’d play to their strengths instead, but you could equally say that (certainly in terms of the still pervasive post-punk/’new pop’ critical mindset) successfully making such a leap is what separates groups who actually have something important to add to the equation from the mere chancers or genre re-enactors. As such, it is heartening to listen to ‘III’ and hear Rakta just making it, y’know - work.

It works so well in fact, I find myself willing them to go even further with the more potentially alienating or absurd aspects of their sound, for there is a self-belief to be felt and heard here that reassures me that this band are not messing around. Just as per their first 12” a couple of years back, ‘III’ is just about the most exhilarating and genuinely forward-thinking thing I’ve heard from the quote-unquote punk underground in donkey’s years, and deserves to be celebrated as such.

Variously pressed in different continents by (I’m quoting here) “Iron Lung Records (USA), Nada Nada Discos/Dama da Noite Discos (BR) and Dê o Fora (ES)”, ‘III’ can be purchased in various formats direct from the band, or check with local distros etc if you need it in hard copy but are wary of the postage.

“Monoliths play heavy and slow”, they say. “No plan, no goals, just riffs.” As a few minutes playback of this LP proves beyond doubt, they ain’t kidding.

Whilst there’s nothing “new” here perhaps, doom is a genre that has always thrived upon stasis, and if it’s fair to say that, if Monoliths do indeed “nail it” here, they do so with an extremely large nail, hammered into the centre of an empty field, around which an amorphous black doom-dog circles on a length of chain, snarling and drooling as the cymbals crash, the feedback shrieks between each downtuned ur-chord and the sub-bass distorts so bad you worry for the future of your speakers.

Trad as fuck but still stretched to suitably – sorry – monolithic proportions, the b-side here (‘Omnipresence of Emptiness’) lays down an ‘eastern’ tinged riff that could have come off a Cathedral record at one end of the horizon, or a Bong LP at the other, and canes it to within an inch of its life, as lead overdubs, sweet death metal bellowing and 2016’s most crushing bass tones keeping monotony at bay whilst the band hit a groove so undeniable it should make all right-thinking advocates of this genre fucking weep. Sweet, slo-mo head-banging gnosis of the highest order – if you don’t like this, perhaps doom is not the genre for you, frankly.

Each year, I need a good drone or two to keep me going, and in truth this LP has spent longer sitting on my turntable than any other on this list.

Scaling back considerably from the intimidating 100+ guitar armies he was operating with a few years back, concerns re: developing a performance that could be toured more economically seem to have led Chatham in entirely the opposite direction, as he has realised that modern delay & looping technology allows him to effectively sit on his lonesome and layer sound to his heart’s content, as he happily acknowledges in the admirably straight-forward account of his aims and methodology that accompanies this release.

(In an area of music that often thrives upon abstraction and obscurantism, I can’t appreciate how much I appreciate Chatham packaging his work with what is essentially a nice little note to his listeners, explaining exactly what he’s up to.)

The results of Chatham’s solo performance endeavours fit this pre-written narrative for this release quite nicely by way of being much, much, much less epic and abrasive than the kind of sound we might have expected of him in the past, seeing him working instead in a far more meditative, self-contained manner, as he starts from near silence, slowly feeding careful phrases of guitar and flute into his no doubt impressive arsenal of boxes with flashing lights, gradually building up an ebbing and flowing tide of overtones and cascading, ever-decaying fragments of melody that, if it is perhaps not exactly burning the rulebook of modern composition and brazenly pissing in the ashes, is nonetheless an absolutely splendid listen for those of us who like to chill with a nice drone on a weekday evening.

And, I don’t have a great deal more to say on the subject to be honest, except to note that, whilst Chatham essentially isn’t doing anything here that any guitar player with a couple of hundred quids-worth of unnecessary pedals hasn’t done (or contemplated doing) in the privacy of their own home, what really shines through on ‘Pythagorean Dream’ is the care and deliberation that his background in composition has allowed him to employ in marshalling these sounds, instinctively honing his every string buzz and knob-twist to enhance the piece, and to add to the listener’s enjoyment of it.

It is an approach, I feel, that anyone approaching this sort of thing from a rock perspective (with its inevitable bias toward self-expression and indulgence) could very much benefit from observing, and one that helps make ‘Pythagorean Dream’ a fine listen that I have returned to frequently throughout 2016.‘Pythagorean Dream’ is available in assorted formats at a range of attractive price points from the UK-based Foom label. (The LP is a lovely package, and hard to beat value-for-money-wise – three cheers, Foom.)